British Columbia NDP Leader Adrian Dix has a moment to himself after a long day of campaigning on Vancouver Island as he waits to be introduced before speaking to supporters during a rally at the Mary Winspear Community Centre in Sidney, B.C., on Thursday April 18, 2013. A provincial election will be held May 14. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck ORG XMIT: CPT632DARRYL DYCK
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

You could always count on B.C. to produce the wildest and wackiest politics in Canada — until a guy named Rob Ford came along.

But while Toronto may have surpassed B.C. on the scale of pure zaniness, this province still delivered a surprising and dramatic year in politics in 2013.

Christy Clark’s election victory May 14 was called the greatest political comeback in Canadian history. By contrast, the NDP blew a 20-point lead in the polls in one of the greatest chokes, triggering a resignation announcement from party leader Adrian Dix.

Two parties on the fringes went in opposite directions. The B.C. Green Party elected its first MLA, Andrew Weaver, while the B.C. Conservatives collapsed on election day and leader John Cummins called it quits.

There was a scandal that reached all the way into Clark’s office. It cost her a cabinet minister and a senior staffer — but not the election.

In the battle for public opinion, resource megaprojects dominated debate. British Columbians battled over pipelines, oil tankers, coal exports and hydro dams — battles that will intensify in 2014.

There were battles, too, over government funding of health care, education and social services, at the same time that Clark’s Liberals tried to deliver a promised balanced budget.

For those Liberals, the year began in gloomy circumstances, with the party trailing badly in the polls, while Dix’s New Democrats held an apparently insurmountable lead.

Clark tried anything and everything to turn things around, including spending $11 million on a Bollywood film festival in a brazen effort to woo Indo-Canadian voters.

But the Liberals’ poll numbers — which started tanking after previous premier Gordon Campbell introduced the doomed HST — only got worse.

As the election approached, a confident Dix even announced he had already hired BCIT president Don Wright to work as his deputy minister in the premier’s office. Wright was confident, too: he quit his “dream job” at BCIT and began planning his move into the west wing of the legislature.

The low point for Clark came in March, when leaked internal documents revealed a complex scheme to misuse the public’s money to help the Liberals in the looming election.

The plan was to use taxpayer-financed staff and resources — including “ethnic outreach workers” and government translation services — to compile contact lists for the party.

The scandal forced the resignations of Clark’s deputy chief of staff and cabinet minister John Yap. Clark issued several grovelling apologies — there was even a brief flurry of speculation she might resign herself — and the Liberals sank deeper in the polls.

And then began the tortoise-and-hare turnaround during the May election campaign.

Clark went for the throat. The Liberals ran nasty attack ads against Dix, while Clark pushed a relentless message focused on jobs and the economy.

The centrepiece of Clark’s campaign was a bold — the NDP called it “phoney” — promise to eliminate the province’s $56-billion debt on the strength of natural-gas exports.

One same-day image that summed up the campaign for many: Clark shaking hands with shift-working miners to promote resource jobs, while Dix went to a mining ghost town — Barkerville — to promote tourism. Clark wore a yellow construction hard hat; Dix wore a felt bowler hat from the gift shop.

Voter anxiety about Dix and the economy was made worse on Earth Day, when he suddenly switched positions and opposed the $5.4-billion Kinder Morgan pipeline.

But the NDP still led the polls as voting day approached. Global TV reported a secret Liberal splinter group was set to force Clark out as leader, starting one minute after voting booths closed at 8 p.m. and the Liberals had lost.

On election night it was a shock when the Liberals won a majority government.

“We have received a mandate from the people,” Clark said in her victory speech. She looked like she could barely believe it herself.

“Never a dull moment in B.C. politics,” a dejected Dix said during his concession speech. In September he announced he would step down as leader once a successor is chosen in 2014.

An official NDP post-mortem blamed the loss on the too-nice campaign tactics and lack of a clear message to voters.

History was also made on election night by the B.C. Green Party, which elected climate-change scientist Andrew Weaver as its first-ever MLA.

But the B.C. Conservatives, once surging in the polls, saw its support bleed to the Liberals. They were shut out of the legislature, former MP John Cummins resigned as leader, and that party will also select a new boss in 2014.

Safely back in power, Clark continued pushing her theme of resource development, amid growing controversy and a divided public.

Clark set down five conditions for supporting any proposed pipeline to carry heavy bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to the B.C. coast for shipment by supertanker to Asia — including “world-leading” environmental standards and a “fair share” of pipeline benefits for B.C.

Clark said the two major proposals — Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to Burnaby — currently do not meet her conditions, though the companies said the projects eventually will.

But meeting Clark’s conditions is one thing. Convincing environmental groups, First Nations and the general public is another.

The year was marked by public debate over resource megaprojects that threaten to turn into flashpoint issues for the government.

“I already have people volunteering to lie down in front of the bulldozers,” said Art Sterritt, executive director of the anti-pipeline Coastal First Nations.

Meanwhile, the Clark government tried to get a grip on its own finances.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong said the government is still on track to balance the budget, but taxpayers were hit with increased B.C. Hydro rates, ICBC premiums and ferry fares.

The government and B.C. Ferries announced they would cut nearly 7,000 round-trip ferry sailings and chop a long-standing seniors’ discount in half to save money.

But they refused to eliminate free sailings for present and former B.C. Ferries employees and their families.

The year ended with taxpayers still smarting from all the increases, while Clark kept pushing her liquefied natural gas agenda, and cynics mocked her claims of the multiple billions of dollars the government will reap.

“Forget about counting your chickens before they’re hatched,” cracked the Green Party’s Weaver. “That’s counting them before the rooster has even entered the hen house. She will have a tough time delivering her promises.”

British Columbia’s political battles promise to heat up again in 2014.

I shudder to think how much taxpayers’ money is being spent to defend Premier John Horgan and ...

Vancouver Flyers

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